


Faults

by SnowMercury



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:41:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21721183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowMercury/pseuds/SnowMercury
Summary: Ford gets to thinking about some things.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Faults

Was it my fault?

These were the first words he wrote in his new journal; this one, at the suggestion of Stan, was a separate one than the one he wrote about anomalies and the supernatural in. This one, he wasn’t going to show anybody, most likely. 

But the journal had been laying open, blank, for a few days now at the end of his bed. He hadn’t had a chance to- who was he kidding? He had sat there for what felt like hours, not sure where to start. Whenever he thought of somewhere to start, his pen started for the page- and then derailed like a train, before he could even touch the paper. It laid as blank as the end of journal three seemed to be, and he wondered if Stan had assumed he had been writing in invisible ink from the passing glances he had gotten of the pages.

But, no. This time it had been as blank as it seemed. 

Was it his fault? 

This was the question he couldn’t shake, the concept he couldn’t rid his mind of. There was no doubt that it was at least partially his fault, but... He had always been naïve. Been a bit too quick to trust. A bit self-isolating. He’d thought he had gotten over that in college, but... Then Bill happened.

And he had fallen for his tricks. Fallen for the flattery, the praise, the debate- it had been the first time in a long while he had been able to truly talk to someone, no worrying about if he seemed weird or if his hands were going to be brought up. No, he and Bill had been friends in the way outcasts were, and he had fallen for it. Fallen for that cycle of isolation, of predation, of a long con. 

It wasn’t until Fiddleford had gone through the portal that he had even suspected. It had taken the near death of his friend to realize anything was wrong. He almost hadn’t, then. 

The page was still mostly blank. The only words- was it my fault?- stood out like yellow on black, and a chill ran up his spine. He wasn’t even speaking, and yet his tongue had been tied in knots. Yet it felt like he was presenting an experiment to a whole auditorium of an audience. His feet tingled, a buzz present in the back of his mind and in his ears- was it my fault?- still the words stared at him. 

What else could he write? He had been the one to endanger the kids by dragging them into the situation. Stan was right about that, earlier. It had been too dangerous. If they had been a second slower....

His heartbeat thudded in his hands at the realization, and he leaned back against the wall, head thudding quietly against the wood as he tilted his head back, eyes closed.

Ford took a deep breath. He counted to twelve. Then he let it out, slowly. And then he did it again. And again. He did it until the lightness in his head softened the buzz, the dizziness distracting from the disaster in his mind. 

He wondered what his father would say. Nothing good. But then, when had he ever had something good to say- in retrospect, so much was pitting him and Stan against each other, or outright condemning them both. He couldn’t exactly trust what Filbrick Pines, _Excellent Father_ , would say about all this. 

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t trust any of his family. The twins were too young to go to about this, he wouldn’t burden them with it- but Stan, he was sitting outside on the deck of the boat, enjoying the spray from the ocean and the bright sunny weather. 

Maybe it was time for him to reach out again, instead of holing himself away again. 

Maybe.


End file.
